GWJFFL 2019: Gonzo League Discussion

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This thread is for the discussion of the new GWJFFL Gonzo League, and for rule modification proposals.

Gonzo League will start with the same rule set as Redraft. What makes Gonzo League different is that a set of "rule modifications" will be selected at random that change those rules. The rule mods will be re-selected before each year, so no two Gonzo League seasons will be the same, and each year, new rule mod proposals will be considered, and some will be accepted and added to the pool of potential mods.

Do not expect a perfectly balanced game. Rather, the goal is to twist the fantasy football concept as far as we can without breaking the game.

Players who wish to participate in the league (or, anyone with good ideas, really) are invited to post replies in this thread with their own rule modification proposals (after reading the rest of this post for details and guidelines).

I alone will select which rule mod proposals are added into the pool of candidates, taking into account our discussions here (and offering my own proposals up for discussion).

Rule modifications and selection:

Rule modifications will be tiered as such:

Tier I - Drastic change to the rules. (1 selected per year)

Tier II - Major rule changes. (2 selected per year)

Tier III - Minor rule changes (3 selected per year)

The selection process will involve choosing modifications in order of tier, starting with Tier I and ending in Tier III. During the selection process, if a newly selected rule conflicts with an already-selected modification, the newly-selected rule is discarded and a new rule modification is selected in its place. (Depending on the severity of the conflict, I may exercise judgement to resolve the conflict without requiring a rule re-selection). This continues until we have our set of 6 non-conflicting rule mods.

Guidelines for rule modification proposals:

Rules must have a name. Silly references are encouraged. Football-specific references are highly encouraged.

Include in the proposal your expectation of tier placement. No rule mod is too big or too small to consider, they're just Tier I and Tier III, respectively.

A Tier I rule mod should be extremely game-changing, likely affecting all positions and roster makeup in a fundamental way.

A Tier II rule mod will likely affect one or more positions in a significant way.

A Tier III rule mod is anything from a minor to a completely trivial change. It might not affect player value much at all, but affect gameplay in some fashion.

Rules should be reasonably easy to understand. People should have a decent idea of how a rule will impact player value without doing excessive number crunching. There should be a certain level of intuitiveness.

Rules (at least in the higher tiers) should change player value in an appreciable way. A rule that doesn't reshuffle player value to some degree is not Gonzo enough.

The best rules do more than just make bad players good and good players bad.

Most rules should be enforceable solely though Fleaflicker rule options. Any rule that requires manual or "on your honor" enforcement needs to be a really good one. (If you're not sure about all of FF rule options, the "Owner's Manual on their site may help, but feel free to ask, and don't be afraid to throw a proposal out there that you're not 100% sure of the implementation on. I'll comment on its viability.)

As much as possible, rules should be building blocks that can live in harmony with other rule modifications. Some will be incompatible with others, some will intentionally be the opposite of others, but in general, we want to keep incompatibility reasonably limited.

Remember the Roger Rabbit "only when it was funny" principle. Anything that is seemingly pointless but still amusing is inbounds. We want to be just serious enough so that it's a twisted-yet-functional game, while allowing some degree of silliness and pointlessness to work its way in. Like if people think a rule mod that adds .000001 to all scoring rules is funny, it can go in. It's OK to have a few pointless ones sprinkled into the candidate pool.

GWJFFL Trophy Case:
Dynasty: 2012, 2013
Pro: 2013

"I have a feeling I'm going to save myself a lot of agita if I pretend Star Citizen doesn't exist for a year." -- Certis, June 26, 2014

Cleaning HouseTier II
If an NFL coach is fired during the season, all players from that NFL team must be cut. Each player can only be claimed by a team that did not have that player before the purge. (Manual enforcement)

He Used to Play BasketballTier III
2 starting TE slots. Converts one flex spot to TE only.

Any player you start for a Thanksgiving game has to start for the remainder of the season barring byes or injuries.

Edit: Someone smarter than me can come up with the rules that would apply to names like Straight Cash, Homie or That's My Quarterback.

Double Edit: Wait, one just came to me...

THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE!

Once per season after the week's slate of games is over, swap the entirety of your starters' points with your bench (all of them, no a la carte). This can be done by simply posting THEY ARE WHO WE THOUGHT THEY WERE! in the appropriate thread.

Kings of the NorthTier I? Tier II?
Add two commissioner run teams to the league, for a total of 14.
One team will consist of all fantasy-relevant Steelers.
One team will consist of all fantasy-relevant Packers. (Sorry Vikings, it's because of the bye week)
Steelers and Packers cannot be drafted or waivered. If a Steeler or Packer is traded to another team, they are dropped from the team and hit waivers as normal. If the Steelers or Packers acquire a player mid-season, they cannot be picked up. For convenience, the commissioner should pick them up on waivers.
The commissioner can make roster substitutions after the fact for any injury announced before kickoff.
On bye week 7, the steelers play the packers.
No more divisions, everyone plays each team in the league once during the 13 week regular season.
Playoffs are simply top 6 teams.

#YOLO
A team can only put each player onto the active roster for one week of the season.

If an ineligible player is found before playoffs start, they are manually removed from the roster for the week and placed on the bench, possibly changing Win/Loss records, leaving an empty slot for scoring.

If an ineligible player is found during playoffs, rosters must be updated before the next week's games start.

If you are eliminated from the playoffs, you must drop all of your players and cannot pick up any players for the remainder of the season.
(Manual enforcement)

Road WarriorsTier II
D/ST is awarded one point for every 5 yards penalized. Only applies if team is playing an away game. (Can include offensive penalties if it makes it easier to track)

Alternatively:Playing DirtyTier II
D/ST is awarded one point for every 5 yards penalized. (Can include offensive penalties if it makes it easier to track)

Today I learned that Fleaflicker actually does have scoring rules for penalties. I don't think it's possible to do the "away game" part (even as a manual rule, as score tallying is automated), but Playing Dirty absolutely can go in.

I think this is a small enough wrinkle that it could be a Tier III.

To give people an idea of what's possible, here's what some of the options for penalty yardage scoring looks like:

So a possibility for a rule might be giving teams points for keeping their penalty yards under X (or number of penalties under X, as there's a separate scoring rule like this for number of penalties instead of yards). OR, to make it Raider football, defenses can begin with a negative "bonus" point score that they have to erase by reaching a certain threshold of penalties or penalty yards.

Note, penalty rules apply per "player" (D/ST counting as a single player, which I'm assuming gets credited for all team penalties on defense or special teams). So it is possible to make penalty rules around individual players too. Skill position players don't tend to accumulate too many penalties, but QBs do get credited for both intentional grounding and delay of game penalties, and RB/TE/WR will occasionally false start or get called for holding.

GWJFFL Trophy Case:
Dynasty: 2012, 2013
Pro: 2013

"I have a feeling I'm going to save myself a lot of agita if I pretend Star Citizen doesn't exist for a year." -- Certis, June 26, 2014

Ironman
No D/ST players. Offensive players score points for special teams play (ie. kick/punt returns).
(This does not interfere with the spirit of the Run & Shoot rule, so it is deemed to be compatible)

GWJFFL Trophy Case:
Dynasty: 2012, 2013
Pro: 2013

"I have a feeling I'm going to save myself a lot of agita if I pretend Star Citizen doesn't exist for a year." -- Certis, June 26, 2014

There were some great rule mod suggestions that I wasn't 100% sure how they would work, and so I put them on ice for now, to be considered again next offseason after we survive this year. I need to poke around the commish settings when it's in live season mode to see what's available to me as far as manual score edits and some of the other more extreme potential interventions.

Also, I made some modifications to proposed rules on their way into the sheet. One that applied to this year: Eammes' Mulligan rule. I changed it from being week 1 to instead being a week determined by another random number draw. I was almost hoping it would draw a number from deep in the playoff chase, but alas, it came up week 2.

Next time, I'm doing the draw on a stream or something.

GWJFFL Trophy Case:
Dynasty: 2012, 2013
Pro: 2013

"I have a feeling I'm going to save myself a lot of agita if I pretend Star Citizen doesn't exist for a year." -- Certis, June 26, 2014

Procedural note: I have slightly reduced roster size to account for the removal of two positions. Going forward, we'll want to spell out this kind of roster size compensation in the rules that remove positions.

Also, when it comes to the draft, if someone is on autodraft, I'm almost certainly going to have to intervene as the autodrafter tries to select AFC players. I'm thinking whenever autodraft selects an AFC player, I will undo the pick, and then select the highest ranked NFC player (by FF site rankings) at the same position as the AFC player selected.

GWJFFL Trophy Case:
Dynasty: 2012, 2013
Pro: 2013

"I have a feeling I'm going to save myself a lot of agita if I pretend Star Citizen doesn't exist for a year." -- Certis, June 26, 2014

Can we shorten benches more? With 16 slots and only 1 QB and 1 K, that leaves 14 slots for WR and RB. Since we only play 1 RB, there's not much point in getting more than 3 or 4 of those. That leaves 10 slots for WRs times 12 teams = 120 WRs. 16 teams in the NFC with most teams dressing 5 wrs = 80 active in a week. There aren't going to be another 40 WRs for us to even draft let alone pick up during the season on the wire.